Can Any Business Use Twitter?

Heard all about Twitter? Joined up but couldn't see the point? The purpose of this article is to help you get to grips with twitter and make it work for you. I didn't learn it all by myself, I was given advice and asked questions and now I have 10,000 tweets under my belt! It really is easy. More to the point each week I regularly win business from twitter. 

What's the point? is a frequent question I see asked, you could ask the same of all social media. My answer is targeted marketing. Where else can I talk to customers, potential customers and our companies drivers with out leaving my desk? I can tweet a traffic update to our drivers within seconds and it costs us nothing, but they are completely up to date and can avoid potential jams and accident hotspots.

The trouble with Twitter is some people get it and some don't. Some people instantly see the potential and others need some help.  I would like to take you through some steps which will help you get more from twitter. I am by no means a twitter expert, just someone who has used it and found it beneficial (and yes, I have had customers from it – in fact I turn down more work than I accept!).

So to start, open your twitter account  with twitter, give yourself a name and add a password and email address and you are done. The registration process is fast and easy – 2 minutes max.

The next step is to find people to follow. To start I suggest you go and find 50 people to follow. You can find them through twitter itself or use a tool such as Nearby Tweets or Tweet Scan.

Why follow local people? You are more likely to meet and build an offline relationship with someone who is nearby to you. Local people recommend local people over people who are much farther way, so use local to your businesses advantage. Talking about local issues will also attract local people to you.

Nearby Tweets will allow you to find and follow people who are local to your location.

Tweet Scan will allow you to search for people with similar interests, same industry or any other reason that you may choose to follow someone.

When you have found 50 people to follow, look at their conversations and reply to some by hitting the arrow key in their response box. @ and their name will appear in the top box, you can type your reply and click update, and you have tweeted! it's that easy. Some people reply, some don't so don't be put off, spend a few more minutes following conversations and then post up what you are doing.

To find your replies, look on the left hand side of the twitter bar and you will see one tab marked '@ replies' here the listing will be sorted so that only your replies show.

So try doing this for a week and see how you go.

You will start to find after a while that using the twitter website page to tweet is a bit inconvenient and awkward as you tab between web pages. So I use the highly recommended <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tweetdeck.com">TweetDeck</a>, the stream of tweets becomes more manageable when you can sort it into sections such as friends, business, and by social networks. Anything that makes the twitter stream more easily managed which is no bad thing, at times it does seem overwhelming!

As you go along, you can tweet pages from the web that interest you, your thoughts on a news story or a problem that you are looking to resolve and see what comes back. Conversations will start to flow and you will be twittering like a professional! Remember with the conversation comes the business.

Any business can use twitter it just takes practice and understanding that you won't get instant results but you will build long term relationships if you make the effort. I have been told by SMEs that their business won't work on twitter, so far I have seen hoteliers sell rooms, owners rent villas, retailers promoting and selling products as well as usual marketers that sell training, ebooks, and online courses. It's about adapting to your environment! If you are stuck for ideas, call me. I'll see what I can do to help.

Sarah Arrow

PS at some point you will want to make things easier for yourself and automatically tweet your articles from here, your blog and other places of interest. Twitterfeed will help you do that, but how to use that? that's a whole new article in itself

Sarah Arrow is also the author of the twitter guide for couriers as well as articles about same day delivery. She is happy to answer advise couriers and transport companies on how to use twitter. It has been said Twitter for couriers is the best value twitter guide you can get for a fiver! You can find it for sale at The Courier Shop

http://www.TheCouriershop.co.uk is also the home to the Complete Courier Guide, where start up couriers can get excellent advice on how to start and grow their business.

Drop by and subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for our articles here.

(c)Sarah Arrow 2009

Edited: November 1st, 2009

How to Fake Twitter &amp; Facebook Followers and Become a Social Media Expert

Yes, well here we go again, another one of those, I've got a list of over "9,000&#8243; Twitter followers so I'm a social media expert marketing forms has hit my desk today. Come along it says, "to my affiliate marketing driven roadshow and in 4 hours I'll make you the expert, but there's more, if you sign away your hard earned money right now, i have an e-book special for you, yes just for you, an E-Book that I didn't write by the way,but I'll pretend its mine, and all it will cost you is $89.00."

I get emails like this every day, offering free product that I can sell or give away as my own, I get E-Books, money making ideas and lots of materials that I can re-brand, that's not being an expert, that's a faker.

These so called experts all have massive numbers of followers on social media sites like MySpace and Facebook and of course Twitter, and they fool you to part with your money.

Well don't fall for it, because I'm going to tell you how to fake it, and then you too can be the instant social media expert, you know, the one who can't get a job selling real estate so they opt for this easy money.

Ok this is how you do it, On MySpace and Facebook, you find as many people with similar names or interests as you and then send them friend requests, a lot will decline but you would be surprised at the number that actually come back and accept you, that way you build up your following very quickly, they never do anything with you but hey it builds your numbers. Next Twitter, there are a number of programs that will show you how to build big follower numbers and it's funny but it's nearly always around the 9000 mark. You can do the same with Twitter as you do with MySpace and Facebook, that is follow large numbers of people and I'll guarantee you a fair number will follow you back, and you know the dead giveaway? look at the follower number next to the following number, that they can't hide.

I know of one expert that actually sends out his flyers with "I have 9000 followers on twitter" so I must be good, well one thing he doesn't tell you is he follows over 10,500. If you really want to get serious with this, have a look at the Twitter accounts with large followings, 99% of them are well known actors, celebrities or business people, so what does that tell you.

I have always taken the tack that to build a social media following you should earn it, build it on providing good quality information and advice and create the "Expert" tag through experience and generate your followers organically not by underhand means and faking it.

There are so many "snake oil" sales people out there you really need to hang on to your wallet.

So next time you get a flyer or an invite, stop and do some research first, the web and Google are a great place to find out information on your expert. How many articles have they had published?, where do they rank on Google?, What recommendations do they have and what companies have they worked with in designing and integrating a social media strategy. For example, I've just done a search on social media experts, and this person I'm telling you about doesn't even rank on the top 20 pages.

Is this sour grapes? no, I just don't like rip off artists who pray on people like you.

Author Mike Andrew is a technology consultant to small business and operates a web consultancy that covers areas such SEO, social media strategy and Internet marketing.

You can visit Mike’s web site on social media more information at http://www.mikeandrewrealestate.com

Edited: November 1st, 2009